by Zan, Koethi
Bob at the front desk would buzz up, and he knew that if I didn’t answer, it meant I didn’t want to see anyone—no matter what. He would bring me my food deliveries personally, because he felt sorry for the crazy woman in 11G, and because I gave him triple what everyone else did at the holidays. In fact, I could stay home all day, every day, and have every meal delivered and every errand outsourced. I had raging Wi-Fi and a premium cable television package. There was nothing I couldn’t do from the privacy of the well-appointed junior six my parents had helped me buy.
The first years out had been madness, literally and figuratively, but thanks to five sessions a week with Dr. Simmons, the therapist they’d provided for us, I had been able to go back to college, get a job, and function passably in the real world. But as time went on and the relationship with my shrink stagnated, I discovered I couldn’t move beyond a certain point.
And then I went into reverse. Retrenching. Slowly, imperceptibly. Until I found it harder and harder to leave my apartment at all. I simply preferred to stay safely in my own cocoon in the midst of a world I perceived as spinning out of control. A world whose evils were driven home to me more each day as I documented them with increasingly sophisticated software.
Then one day the buzzer rang, and Bob said it wasn’t a delivery but a flesh and blood man. Someone from my past. I shouldn’t have let him up, but I felt I owed this particular visitor at least that much. That’s where it all began again.
“Caroline.” Agent McCordy was rapping at my door, while I stood frozen to the spot on the other side. I hadn’t spoken to him in two years, since the last letter came. I wasn’t ready for another communication from that other life.
It was when that last bit of correspondence from the prison had arrived that I had stopped going out entirely. Just touching something he had touched, reading something he had thought, was enough to send me spinning into that circle of despair and fear I thought I’d left behind. Dr. Simmons had started making house calls at that point. For the first month afterward, though she wouldn’t say it, I knew I was on quasi-suicide watch. My mom flew in. My father called every night. I was invaded. And here it was, beginning again.
“Caroline, can you open up?”
“Sarah,” I corrected, through the door, annoyed that he was following protocol, using that other name, the one I reserved for the outside world.
“I’m sorry—I mean, Sarah. Can you let me in?”
“Do you have another letter?”
“I need to talk to you about something more important, Car—Sarah. I know Dr. Simmons has talked to you about this a little already. She said I could come by.”
“I don’t want to talk about it. I’m not ready.” I paused, but then, feeling it was inevitable, I methodically unlatched the three deadbolts and the regular lock on the door. I opened it slowly. There he stood, badge in hand, held wide open to me. He knew I’d want to confirm that he was still official. I smiled at that. Then I folded my arms, defensively, my smile disappearing, and took a step back. “Why does it have to be me?”
I turned, and he followed me into the room. We sat down across from each other, but I didn’t offer him anything to drink for fear he’d get too comfortable and stay awhile. He looked around.
“Immaculate,” he said with a slow smile. “You never change, Sarah.” He took out his notebook and pen, placing them carefully on the coffee table, at a perfect ninety-degree angle.
“Neither do you,” I said, noticing his precision. I smiled again, despite myself.
“You know why it has to be you,” he began slowly. “And you know why it has to be now. This is it.”
“When is it?”
“In four months. I came early to prepare you. We can prepare together. We will work with you every step of the way. You won’t be alone.”
“But Christine? Tracy?”
“Christine won’t speak to us. She won’t speak to her social worker. She has completely cut us off. She married an investment banker who doesn’t know about her past or even her real name. She has an apartment on Park Avenue and two daughters. One started preschool at Episcopal this year. She won’t go near this.”
I had some vague knowledge about Christine’s life, but I could never believe how thoroughly she had managed to cut the whole experience out of her existence, to isolate and excise it like the cancer it was.
I should have expected it, given that Christine had been the one to suggest we change our identities when the press couldn’t get enough of our story. She had walked out of the police intake with a purpose, as though she hadn’t been starved for the past two years and hadn’t been crumpled in a corner crying for the past three. She didn’t look back. Didn’t say good-bye to me or Tracy, didn’t fall apart like Tracy did, didn’t hang her head in defeat, battered from the years of humiliation and pain. She just walked.
After that, we knew only the outline of her story through the social worker who met with us all, and who each year tried to get us together on the questionable theory that we could help one another recover. The message back from Christine was that she had already recovered, thank you very much. And good riddance to us all.
“Tracy then.”
“Tracy is coming, but you have to understand it can’t be Tracy alone.”
“Why not? She’s stable, brilliant, articulate. You could even call her a small-business owner of sorts. Isn’t that legit enough?”
He chuckled. “I suppose she is a productive member of society. But she isn’t exactly the local greengrocer. More like your local radical feminist activist. And because that journal she publishes focuses on violence against women, she might just appear to have her own agenda.
“And yes,” he went on, “she is articulate. After all those years in grad school, she’d better be. But in these circumstances she manages to go on the offense. She doesn’t exactly inspire the pity we need the parole board to feel. Not to mention that she has a shaved head and forty-one tattoos.”
“Wha—”
“I asked. I didn’t count.” He paused. “Carol—”
“SARAH.”
“Sarah, when was the last time you left this apartment?”
“What do you mean?” I turned away from him. I looked around at this prewar gem bathed in white as though it shared my guilt in some way. A little heaven of my own making. “It’s so beautiful. Why would I want to leave it?”
“You know what I mean. When did you last leave? To go anywhere. To walk down the block. To get fresh air. To exercise.”
“I open my windows. Sometimes. And I exercise. You know. In here.” I looked around. All the windows were shut and locked, despite the beautiful spring day outside.
“Does Dr. Simmons know this?”
“She knows. She isn’t ‘pushing me beyond my own boundaries,’ she says. Or something like that. Don’t worry. Dr. Simmons is all over it. She’s got my number. Or numbers, as it were. OCD, agoraphobia, haphephobia, post-traumatic stress disorder. I still see her three times a week. Yes, I see her here in this apartment; don’t look at me like that. But you know, I’m an upstanding citizen with a solid job and a lovely home. I’m just fine. Things could be much worse.”
Jim stared at me for a minute with pity in his eyes. I looked away from him, feeling a little ashamed of myself for the first time in a while. His voice turned serious again when he finally spoke.
“Sarah,” he said, “there is another letter.”
“Send it to me,” I replied, with a fierceness that surprised us both.
“Dr. Simmons is not sure it’s a good idea. She didn’t want me to tell you.”
“It’s mine. It’s addressed to me, isn’t it? And therefore you have to send it to me. Isn’t that federal law or something?” I stood up and started pacing the room, biting my thumbnail.
“It doesn’t even make any sense,” he started. “It’s more of his ramblings. It’s mostly about his wife.”
“I don’t doubt that it makes no sense. None of them do. Bu
t one day he’s going to slip up, and there’ll be a clue. He’ll tell me where the body is. Not in so many words, but he’ll let something out, something that will tell me where to look.”
“And how will you do that? How will you look? You won’t even leave the apartment. You won’t even testify at the guy’s parole hearing.”
“And what kind of a freak woman marries a guy like that anyway?” I interjected, ignoring him as I paced faster. “Who are these women who write letters to prisoners? Do they secretly want to be chained up, tortured, and killed? Do they want to get close enough to the fire to get burned?”
“Well, apparently she got his name through her church. They set this up as some kind of mission of mercy. According to him and his attorney, it worked. According to them, he’s a true convert.”
“Do you believe that for one second?” He shook his head, as I went on. “I’m sure she’ll be the first one to regret it when he’s out.”
I walked back around to the sofa and sat down, putting my head in my hands. I sighed.
“I can’t even have sympathy for this person. Such an idiot.”
In ordinary circumstances, I’m sure Jim would have patted my shoulder or maybe even put his arm around me. Normal acts of comfort. But he knew better. He stayed right where he was.
“You see, Sarah, you don’t believe he’s had a religious conversion, and I don’t believe it. But what if the parole board believes it? What if this guy serves just ten years for keeping you all locked up and—killing one of you? Ten years. Is that enough for you? Is that enough for what he did to you?”
I turned away from him so he wouldn’t see the tears forming in my eyes.
“He still owns the house,” Jim continued. “If he gets out, that’s right where he will be going. That house. In four months. With his Southern Baptist jailhouse wife in tow.”
Jim shifted in his seat and leaned forward, changing tack. “Your best friend, Sarah. Your best friend. Do it for Jennifer.”
By then I couldn’t hold back the floodgates. I didn’t want him to see my tears, so I stood up and quickly walked to the kitchen to get a drink of water. I stood running the faucet for a full minute, pulling myself together. My hands gripped the edge of the sink until my knuckles were as white as the cold porcelain under my fingers. When I came back, Jim was standing up to leave. He was slowly gathering his things and putting them back in his case one by one.
“I’m sorry to push you, Sarah. Dr. Simmons won’t like it. But we need you to make this victim impact statement. Without you, I’m worried. I know we let you down. I let you down. I know the kidnapping charge wasn’t sufficient for all he did. At the end of the day we just didn’t have the proof to charge him with murder. Without a body, and with DNA evidence that was … contaminated. But we have to make sure he serves at least the full sentence on what we’ve got him for. We can’t take any chances on that.”
“It wasn’t your fault. It was the lab—” I started.
“My case, my fault. And believe me, I’ve been paying the price ever since. Let’s get through this and put it behind us.”
Easy for him to say. I was sure that’s just what he wanted, to put this mess in his past. His big career mistake. For me, it was a little more difficult.
He held up his card, but I waved it away. I had the number.
“I will prep you here at your apartment. Anywhere you want. We need you.”
“And Tracy will be there too?”
“Yes, Tracy will be there, but …” He looked over at the window, embarrassed.
“But she made it a condition that she doesn’t have to see me, talk to me, or be alone with me, right?”
Jim hesitated. He didn’t want to say it, but I could see right through him.
“You can say it, Jim. I know she hates me. Just say it.”
“Yes, she made that a condition.”
“Okay. Okay, I’ll think about it, not just ‘okay.’”
“Thanks, Sarah.” He took an opened envelope out of his notebook and placed it on the table. “The letter. You’re right, it’s yours. Here it is. But please talk to Dr. Simmons before you read it.”
He walked to the door. He knew not to try to shake my hand. Instead, he gave me a quick wave from the other side of the room and closed the door quietly behind him, then stood right outside, waiting for me to fasten the bolts. When he heard the final click, he walked away. He knew me well.
CHAPTER 3
I spent three days alone in the apartment with the letter. I put it in the center of the dining room table and walked around and around it for hours, thinking. I knew I would read it, of course. I knew it was the only way I could get closer to the truth. I had to find Jennifer’s body. It was the least I could do for her, and for me. As I stared at that letter alone with my fear, I could just imagine Jennifer looking up at me with her empty eyes, pleading without a word, find me.
Ten years ago the FBI had put their best men on the case. They questioned him for hours, but he didn’t give them anything. I could have told them that. He was cold and methodical and, I knew, totally unafraid of any punishment they could mete out. No one could touch him.
This was a man who had fooled the administration at the University of Oregon for more than twenty years. The image that stuck in my head was of him at the lectern, with all those eager co-eds writing down every word he spoke. He must have loved that. I could just picture the teaching assistants sitting so close to him, one on one, in that stuffy little office I visited later with the prosecutor.
When Christine went missing, no one even remembered that she had been one of his favorite students. Good old Professor Jack Derber. What a great guy he was, a wonderful and brilliant professor. He had built a nice life for himself, and he even had a little mountain retreat nearby that his adoptive parents had left him. No one knew it had such an ample cellar. His parents had used it for pickling and canning. But not Jack.
I pulled myself out of my reverie. I was here. Safe in my own apartment, staring at this letter. I had practically memorized the crinkle of the paper, the soft line of the tear from when the lab tech had opened it with some sharp instrument. The seam was flawless. Derber would have liked to see that. He always admired a clean cut.
I knew they had studied the contents carefully, but I also knew there would be something in there only I would understand. Above all things, that’s how he operated. He wanted that personal relationship. Very deep and very personal. He got inside your mind, crawled in like a venomous snake slithering into a hole in the desert, then twisted around in there until he was fully comfortable and at home. It had been hard to resist him when physical weakness made you turn to your attacker as a savior. Harder to push him away when, after taking everything away from you, maybe forever, he doled out the only things you needed to sustain you—food, water, cleanliness, the least sign of affection. A small comforting word. A kiss in the dark.
Captivity does things to you. It shows you how base an animal you can be. How you’d do anything to stay alive and suffer a little bit less than the day before.
So I was scared looking at that letter, remembering the control he’d had, and in some ways might always have, if it was put to the test. I was scared that that envelope might contain words powerful enough to take me back there.
But I knew I couldn’t betray Jennifer again. I would not die letting her body sink deeper into the earth, alone wherever he had put her.
I could be strong now. I reminded myself that now I wasn’t starving, tortured, naked, deprived of light and air and normal human contact. Well, maybe normal human contact, but that was of my own choosing.
And now, after all, I had Bob the doorman downstairs and a whole city of saviors out there, shadowy forms far below my window down on Broadway, shopping, laughing, talking, never knowing that eleven stories up a ten-year-old drama was unfolding at my dining room table. Me against me, mano a mano.
I picked up the envelope and eased out the single piece of thin paper. The
pen had been pushed so hard against it, I could feel the letters like Braille from the back. Sharp letters. Nothing curved, nothing soft.
Jennifer had been gone from the cellar only a few days when he started taunting me. At first I dared to hold out hope. Maybe she had managed to escape and would send for help. I would spend hours imagining how she had broken free, that she was just beyond the cellar walls, with the police, their weapons drawn, surrounding the house. I knew how unlikely that was, given that she’d barely had the strength to walk up the stairs when he pulled her from the box that last time, with her head covered and arms chained. Still I hoped.
He left me to my own imagination for a while, then slowly it dawned on me what his strategy was. He started smiling at me knowingly when he came down to bring us food or water. As if we had a secret together. He gave me extra each day, as though he were nursing me back to health, as a reward for something. Christine and Tracy began to look at me suspiciously. Their voices sounded guarded when they spoke.
I was disgusted at first, but in the end, this new form of torture provided the germ of the idea that would save me.
After nearly two months, in a gesture of what might have even been compassion in his twisted worldview, he told me she was dead. I could not believe the emptiness that fell inside me in that instant, as if a black cloth had dropped over our cellar diorama. Despite the fact that Jennifer had not spoken a word in nearly three years, and I hadn’t seen her face for the last one because of the ever-present black hood, still her presence had defined my day-to-day existence. She had been there, silent, like a deity.
When Tracy was upstairs and Christine asleep, I could whisper to Jennifer safely without being heard. Prayers, supplications, musings, memories of our life were all spinning out into the darkness to her, my quiet goddess in the box. Her suffering was so much greater than mine. Maybe that was what gave me the strength to keep fighting, and, indeed, to stay alive.